Poem: "The Coffee House" at "Highland Park Poetry"

I first wrote "The Coffee House" back in 2016 and sent it out with some regularity -- more than 25 times over the next couple of years. Nobody wanted it. Nobody cared. I came to think that maybe this poem simply didn't work. Maybe I needed to pen another piece inspired by Fassbinder's strange made-for-TV movie indebted to Goldoni. Which I did, albeit defaulting this time to its German title. "Das Kaffeehaus / El Cafe." That new poem got published within a year of its creation. And yet... When I was pulling together my collection Fassbinder: His Movies, My Poems for the umpteenth time, a manuscript itself which went out to over 100 publishers before landing at Anxiety Press, I came across "The Coffee House" again and you know what? I really liked it. I still do. I know its insistently rhythm-driven rhyme is out of fashion. But that makes me like it even more. Indeed its inclusion in Fassbinder seems especially important since that man wasn't afraid to buck the trends. And, much to my delight, before my Fassbinder collection came out, "The Coffee House" found a home at Coffee People Zine fairly quickly. And now once again, the poem relives at Highland Park Poetry. Trust yourself.

The Coffee House

Some things are better forgotten.

Some things are best left unsaid.

Some things are just plain rotten. 
Some things pass on with the dead.

Some things cannot be forgiven.

Some things are not what they seem.

Some things are reasons for living.

Some things fall short of the dream.

Some things could go on forever.

Some things improve over time.

Some things show promise however

some things can stop on a dime.

Some things are strictly forbidden.

Some things are honest but mean.

Some things are so poorly hidden.

Some things come clear with caffeine.

Highland Park Poetry republished "The Coffee House" on its social media platforms in June 2025. The accompanying Wikimedia image is from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: "Coffee cup (part of a service)" and depicts porcelain made in the Bavarian Nymphenburg factory, with decoration in the style of Kajetan Purtscher.